Due to a recent discovery that my blog had been hacked, I had gone off the grid for a while. At first, the shock overwhelmed me. Why would anyone do such a thing? It happened during a major onslaught on the organization that sponsors my blog.
The experience almost resembled a personal attack. I felt like I had been violated. Someone came into my space uninvited and messed it up. They did so to the point that I needed professional help to fix it. Without that assistance, I would not be able to continue producing my blog.
This event brought me to a crossroads. Did I, in my mid-seventies, feel a desire to continue? Were my blogs of enough value to my readers to go on? I prayed about it, recognizing a legitimate concern over the expense of repairs. The running cost at that time was a least $90 per hour and I was a retired widow on a fixed income.
I finally recalled my deceased husband’s wise advice when I had struggled to conquer math classes. This was so I could enter a master’s program which required a passing score on the Graduate Record Exam. His question at that time was, “What would you be doing if you weren’t taking math classes?” I had to admit I would just be doing housework, cooking, and the usual things.
My eventual decision was to ask God to stop me if this plan wasn’t according to His will. I could serve Him in other ways, but it seemed a waste not to use a gift I perceived He’d given me for His glory.
So, I bravely started the process of finding help for my blog’s repair. The sponsoring group gave me an estimated time of three hours at $90 a pop. This figure scared me a little and made me wonder how much to trust people I knew only through undecipherable chats when I’d previously had trouble.
Ah, but I remembered a Christian female web master whose services were used by several of my close writer friends. They testified to her trustworthiness and their continued use of her services. So, I emailed Gretchen Louise (gretchen@gretchenlouise.com) with a request for help. Once the problem had been defined, she was happy to come to my aid.
Hooray! Now I was getting somewhere. I prepared myself for the big bill and awaited the bad news. However, God blessed me when Gretchen reported not much later that she’d been able to complete the fix in only a half hour. Wow! What a pleasant surprise.
I was delighted with her quick and principled service, so I signed up for ongoing maintenance of my blog. It would provide better security from any future hacks.
Now, all I need to do is get back on track and start creating new posts, of which, this is the first.